CITIES PROCEED WITH SAND PROJECT

Encinitas, SB agree to back ongoing study, provide resources

Encinitas and Solana Beach have decided to go ahead -- for now -- with a 50-year project to replenish local beaches with millions of cubic yards of sand dredged from the sea.

If all goes according to plan, the joint local, state and federal project could result in wider beaches by 2016.

The effort would result in sand stretching 100 feet to the water in Encinitas and 200 feet in Solana Beach, according to a report that went to city councils in both cities during separate meetings Wednesday night.

The wider beaches, the report says, would lead to net annual benefits of nearly $2.6 million, largely through increased tourism spending. Perhaps more important, it would stabilize much of the North County coastline; at least five people have been killed from bluff or sea cave collapses from Torrey Pines to Carlsbad since 2000.

“This is a huge opportunity that we can’t pass up,” said attorney Jon Corn, who represents the Beach and Bluff Conservancy in Solana Beach.

Surfers, however, warn the project will irreparably damage some of North County’s prime surf spots and also hurt the local economy, as offshore reefs that create coveted waves will be smothered with sand.

And the report notes that four of 21 surf spots — including Stone Steps in Encinitas and Table Tops in Solana Beach — would be affected.

“There are a limited number of quality surf spots, and you’re about to bury a few,” the Surfrider Foundation’s Mark Rauscher told the Solana Beach council before it voted to continue pursuing the project.

“Table Tops will be gone,” surfer Adam Enright said.

At issue Wednesday was whether to continue with a regional beach sand study led by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that’s been more than a dozen years in the making. So far, the project has cost various government agencies $8 million.

After hours of discussion, both councils decided that they had gone too far to turn back now. Council members reasoned that they could kill the project if red flags continue to be raised.

Next up will be meetings in Washington, D.C., and some pre-construction design work, Corps project manager Susie Ming told the Encinitas council.

Barring any glitches, the federal government could be paying for sand that gets pumped onto Encinitas and Solana Beach shorelines in 2016, she added.

Tens of millions of additional dollars will be needed, though. In Solana Beach alone, the project is expected to cost $66 million over its 50-year life. Congress would still have to authorize the spending that would cover most of the bill.

Josephine Axt, chief of planning for the Corps’ Los Angeles office, said the study has gone on so long that it’s considered a “legacy” project, and thus the proposed sand replenishment work has a high likelihood of ultimately being funded.

“Now that we have a plan, we believe we will fare very well in the federal funding arena,” she said.

But, she said, the councils needed to accept the Corps’ latest recommendations for the project to move forward.

“I think it would be inappropriate for us not to move forward,” Encinitas Councilman Mark Muir said moments before casting his vote.

“This is just one step along the way,” said Solana Beach Mayor Mark Nichols, an avid surfer. “We have control of this project and there will be opportunities to talk about a redesign ... There’s flexibility here.”

The Surfrider Foundation and coastal environmental advocates say the scale of the project is far too huge for the local ecosystem to handle. They are arguing for a more modest effort. They raised similar objections in San Clemente, which later worked with the Army Corps to reduce the size of a project there that is about a year ahead of the local effort.

North County has benefited from several beach sand replenishment projects in recent years, but those efforts have been paid for through local programs. This proposed Army Corps project would provide federal financing, and be much more massive.

On Wednesday night, both city councils agreed to accept the conclusions of the latest version of the draft study produced by the Corps, and to contribute staff time and other resources to get the project done.

In Encinitas’ case, the federal agency is recommending initially placing 680,000 cubic yards of sand on the city’s beaches from Daphne Street in Leucadia to G Street near downtown. Every five years after that first project, the Corps recommends adding 280,000 cubic yards of beach sand to the shoreline.

The plan calls for initially placing 960,000 cubic yards of sand on the Solana Beach coastline. Replenishments of 420,000 cubic yards of sand would occur every 13 years.

Corps staffers said Solana Beach would need less-frequent deposits because the waves are not as damaging in that city.

For comparison, a 2012 beach sand project organized by the San Diego Association of Governments added about 92,000 cubic yards of sand to Moonlight Beach, 89,000 cubic yards to Cardiff Beach, and 106,000 cubic yards near the Batiquitos Lagoon.

The report noted that “beach nourishment has been employed as a shoreline management strategy along the East Coast and Gulf Coasts of the United States for more than 50 years.”

Corps officials added that if the project is successful, it could eliminate the need for additional sea walls.

With their approvals Wednesday night, the Encinitas and Solana Beach councils agreed to send letters in support of continuing the project to the federal Civil Works Review Board, which is scheduled to meet June 21 in Washington, D.C. Had they failed to do so, the effort would have died.